Two Ideas I Love

I've seen some great ideas in cyberspace recently, two I think worthy of sharing.

On my travels over Christmas I found a link to this tutorial on the site Always A Project. It is called Hoopla & is a tutorial to make a fabric container using an old wooden screw together embroidery hoop to provide the stability & hanger for the basket.

I thought that was a great idea, stored it away for later use and forgot about it until I looked at the blog of a new visitor to my Friday Night With Friends post. Brenda saw this idea too but took it 100 steps further. She made a heap of the containers, colour coded the bag liners to match the main fabric colours, hung them all on a rod on the wall and now has the best & prettiest scrap storage solution around.

(photo courtesy of Brenda at Ladybug Dreams)

Is this not ingenious? The purple scraps go in the purple basket, the orange in the orange one etc & what a great wall feature. I don't have wall space like that but I can see them looking just as good in small groups like on the kitchen rails from IKEA or even on individual hooks. Brenda even covered up the wooden hoops to make them even prettier.

Thanks for letting me share the clever use you made of the Hoopla tutorial from Always A Project Brenda! I can always do with ideas to make me a little tidier & to make using scraps easier. Go visit Brenda at Ladybug Dreams for more pictures too. On the latest post on Ladybug Dreams check out all the 2.5 inch squares Brenda cut during Friday Night With Friends.

My second find is the latest Missouri Quilts Video Tutorial for Phoebe's Quilt. Being a stitcher who makes lots of small projects I am itching to make a couple of quilts & who would have thought - ones without stitcheries or applique. I am yet to make myself a bed quilt or a snuggly lap quilt for on the couch in winter. I think this tutorial might just be lovely for my lap quilt. I haven't done a lot of piecing & roller cutting for hours is not me either so this looks like a good quilt for me.

Now my only problem is what fabrics to use. I have a gorgeous jelly roll just waiting to be used in California Girl by Moda but nothing for the sashing, borders & binding.

But I am also thinking a winter quilt so maybe I should use my long stored stash of Robin Pandolph 'Roses de Noel' - delicious. I would need to buy something for the sashing where Jenny uses the solid grey but it would be a very pretty & wintery quilt. But ALAS is my heart still in these fabrics, I do so like the fresh, summery fabrics with the white backgrounds... 

Lets face it - I'm not one to rush so no immediate decisions need to be made. I will no doubt change my mind a dozen times & then be dazzled by the next Missouri Quilt tutorial and decide to change the pattern too. We are spoilt for choice in our crazy, fabricy world!

I'll leave these fabrics on my cutting board for the next week or so & see how they speak to me in that time and decide whether they will find a place in my winter quilt or back in the storage bad for them.

I had a brilliant day at the WAQA Applique Group Sunday & have almost finished my next SKOW block. That means I can piece a few squares in between and have another row done. The ladies of the group do phenomenal work, 2 are teachers & work in quilty shops, one has won best in show and the others were doing elaborate William Morris appliques - ekk! but all had lovely things to say about my SKOW as I was lamenting my pre-school level needleturn skills. I was told a couple of things to watch for so hopefully my shattered confidence is slowly back on the upward trajectory again. Quilters can be such top class chicks!

Have a great week all. I'll be at work but at least I will be loving the very chilly air-conditioning.

Tracee xx